We woke up quite early in order to grab some roti for breakfast before our minivan came to pick us up. Sadly, the roti stands were not open quite yet, so we had 'coconut rice'. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why they gave it that name. It's a parcel of rice (in a banana leaf) with curry sauce. At first, I thought it might be coconut-flavored rice with curry, but no. Then I thought there was a chunk of
coconut on top of the rice and curry, but it turned out to be egg. Either way, it ended up being delicious, and we headed back to our hostel with full bellies. We hopped on our minibus and were on our way! The drive was absolutely gorgeous. We rode through the rainy, misty rainforest, and every so often caught a glimpse of a Orang Asli village that got upgraded (i.e. someone built them all concrete homes). We got to the border of the rainforest, then had to wait for a couple of hours for our boat to depart. We grabbed some lunch, played some cards, and hopped on our boat for an equally gorgeous butt-numbing 2.5 hour boat ride upstream to the town right next to Taman Negara. After disembarking, we searched a bit for a hostel, and finally found one with a river view. The town is quit
e small, and Taman Negara is actually across the river (you pay a boat river 1 ringgit (30 cents) for a crossing. There are 2 rivers that intersect here: one a deep dark black, and the other a light brown...it was really cool to watch the waters mixing. There are about 10 floating restaurants on our side of the river, accessible by boardwalk from the shore. So, we settled into our hostel, and then went out to grab some food at one of the floating restaurants. We got sweet and sour chicken and red chile chicken, which tasted almost exactly the same. Afterwards, we watched the information video about Taman Negara while eating a mango pancake, and then headed to bed.
coconut on top of the rice and curry, but it turned out to be egg. Either way, it ended up being delicious, and we headed back to our hostel with full bellies. We hopped on our minibus and were on our way! The drive was absolutely gorgeous. We rode through the rainy, misty rainforest, and every so often caught a glimpse of a Orang Asli village that got upgraded (i.e. someone built them all concrete homes). We got to the border of the rainforest, then had to wait for a couple of hours for our boat to depart. We grabbed some lunch, played some cards, and hopped on our boat for an equally gorgeous butt-numbing 2.5 hour boat ride upstream to the town right next to Taman Negara. After disembarking, we searched a bit for a hostel, and finally found one with a river view. The town is quit
e small, and Taman Negara is actually across the river (you pay a boat river 1 ringgit (30 cents) for a crossing. There are 2 rivers that intersect here: one a deep dark black, and the other a light brown...it was really cool to watch the waters mixing. There are about 10 floating restaurants on our side of the river, accessible by boardwalk from the shore. So, we settled into our hostel, and then went out to grab some food at one of the floating restaurants. We got sweet and sour chicken and red chile chicken, which tasted almost exactly the same. Afterwards, we watched the information video about Taman Negara while eating a mango pancake, and then headed to bed. Jan 7: Hiking in the Rainforest in the rain
This morning we awoke to the sound of rain, which made us rather sad. When we decided to come here, we knew it was the rainy season and were risking visiting during a time where it just rained all day, every day, but w
e were hoping that it wouldn't. Anyway, we decided to sleep in a bit, discouraged by the rain. We finally got up, got some breakfast, and headed across the river to do some hiking (despite the warnings that it was 'dangerous' by the tour agent trying to sell us one of his tours). We decided to do one of the more common loops, which included the Jungle walkway (although it was probably closed because of all the rain) and a hike to the top of a hill for some nice views (even though the views would probably be obstructed by the large amounts of clouds). Like I said, it was raining, so we had on some cheapo plastic rain c
overs (like trash bags), but we soon became very hot and sweaty, and decided to take them off, especially since we were a bit sheltered by all the trees. So...it was wet and rainy and muddy (and later we would discover there were lots and lots of leeches), but were enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. There is just something quite magical about being in the rainforest while it's raining. Also, we didn't see another soul our whole hike (I guess other people weren't quite as brave as we were). We got to the Jungle Walkway, and of course it was closed, so we continued to the top of the hill (Bukit Teresek), where we literally saw 
nothing but whiteness (yay!). Feeling a little bit disappointed but at the same time also a bit accomplished, we headed back down the mountain. It turns out this part of the trail was muddier than the first part, actually, much muddier. We avoided large prickly vines, large puddles of water and/or mud, and screamed as we slid down muddy slopes, but finally we made it to a part of the trail that was a bit less muddy (thank god). This is the point in the story where we found out about leeches. My ankle was 
itching, so I looked down and saw several leeches. At this point, I took off my shoe, and handed it to Phil, so he could do the leech removing. It turns out that this is quite difficult, since if you pull the leech off with your hand, it will just immediately attach to your hand. We quickly discovered that leaves were quite useful for removing leeches (we found out later that lighters and salt work quite well too). During the 5 minutes it took Phil to get the leeches out of my shoe (the had crawled quite deep), I noticed there were also leeches on my other ankle, but I couldn't really do anything about it, since I was standing on that foot, and Phil had my other shoe...so I just had to wait. So, finally after removing 4 leeches from my ankles and several more from my shoes (Phil also had a few, but less, since he had 2 pairs of long socks--the leeches were sucking blood through both pairs anyway), we hastily continued our journey, quite eager to make it to the safety of boardwalks and no more leeches. We finally returned to civilization, talked to the park ranger (who gave us a nice map), and crossed back over the river for a nice long (cold) shower, removal of a few more leeches (noting the leech-hickies) and some dinner at another floating restaurant. Quite tired, we went to bed.
e were hoping that it wouldn't. Anyway, we decided to sleep in a bit, discouraged by the rain. We finally got up, got some breakfast, and headed across the river to do some hiking (despite the warnings that it was 'dangerous' by the tour agent trying to sell us one of his tours). We decided to do one of the more common loops, which included the Jungle walkway (although it was probably closed because of all the rain) and a hike to the top of a hill for some nice views (even though the views would probably be obstructed by the large amounts of clouds). Like I said, it was raining, so we had on some cheapo plastic rain c
overs (like trash bags), but we soon became very hot and sweaty, and decided to take them off, especially since we were a bit sheltered by all the trees. So...it was wet and rainy and muddy (and later we would discover there were lots and lots of leeches), but were enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. There is just something quite magical about being in the rainforest while it's raining. Also, we didn't see another soul our whole hike (I guess other people weren't quite as brave as we were). We got to the Jungle Walkway, and of course it was closed, so we continued to the top of the hill (Bukit Teresek), where we literally saw 
nothing but whiteness (yay!). Feeling a little bit disappointed but at the same time also a bit accomplished, we headed back down the mountain. It turns out this part of the trail was muddier than the first part, actually, much muddier. We avoided large prickly vines, large puddles of water and/or mud, and screamed as we slid down muddy slopes, but finally we made it to a part of the trail that was a bit less muddy (thank god). This is the point in the story where we found out about leeches. My ankle was 
itching, so I looked down and saw several leeches. At this point, I took off my shoe, and handed it to Phil, so he could do the leech removing. It turns out that this is quite difficult, since if you pull the leech off with your hand, it will just immediately attach to your hand. We quickly discovered that leaves were quite useful for removing leeches (we found out later that lighters and salt work quite well too). During the 5 minutes it took Phil to get the leeches out of my shoe (the had crawled quite deep), I noticed there were also leeches on my other ankle, but I couldn't really do anything about it, since I was standing on that foot, and Phil had my other shoe...so I just had to wait. So, finally after removing 4 leeches from my ankles and several more from my shoes (Phil also had a few, but less, since he had 2 pairs of long socks--the leeches were sucking blood through both pairs anyway), we hastily continued our journey, quite eager to make it to the safety of boardwalks and no more leeches. We finally returned to civilization, talked to the park ranger (who gave us a nice map), and crossed back over the river for a nice long (cold) shower, removal of a few more leeches (noting the leech-hickies) and some dinner at another floating restaurant. Quite tired, we went to bed.Jan 8: Jungle Walkway, more leeeeeches (ugh) and a Night Safari!
We were quite excited to wake up to the sound of NO RAIN! Quite excited, we grabbed some breakfast and crossed the
river to go back to the Jungle Walkway (which was open, since it wasn't raining!). After paying our 5 ringgit, we headed up, and enjoyed the rickety 30 min walk 120 feet up in the air! Quite satisfied, we decided to do a bit more trekking, but on the other side of the black river (we also really wanted to cross the river, so we could see the brown river and the black rivers mixing up close). We started our hike on the opposite side of the river, quite happy that it was not raining, and stopping to check for leeches every 5 minutes or so. We saw some wild boar tracks, and got pretty excited (we really wanted to spot some kind of wild animal...maybe an elephant or a tiger...even though we knew we probably wouldn't). We continued our trek, stopping every few minutes or so beca
use we thought we heard an animal (even though we didn't...it turns our there are lots of random noises in the rain forest). Then, we really did hear a wild animal--a boar squealing. At this point we realized that we actually didn't really want to encounter a wild boar, especially after hearing many stories about how aggressive they are. We stood there for a while, trying to decide what to do, until we heard another squeal (much closer) and lots of rustling. At this point, Phil grabbed a stick and we both ran behind a tree. It turns out this tree just happened to be home to quite a few termites, which had decided to come out in full force after we disturbed them. After running back out onto the main trail to brush a bunch of termites off us, we decided we had had enough of mosquitoes, leeches, termites, and boars and decided to turn around. We boated across the river, took a quick shower, grabbed some food, and booked ourselves a "night safari tour". At 8pm, we boarded a pickup truck with a whole bunch of other people (4 inside the cab, 6 in the bed, and 5 of us on the top...yes, we were o
n top) and headed out to the palm tree orchard (which I thought was a strange place to search for wildlife, but it actually worked out in the end). The guide connected a giant, super bright spot light to the car battery, and began scanning the trees. Our first sighting was a slow loris [note: while this link provides video footage of a slow loris, I think our picture (left) of the slow loris in action is much more useful]. After that, we saw some owls, a bunch of really pretty kingfishers, several cows, lots of mice, a palm civet (the same ones that eat coffee and poop it out to make that very special variety of coffee) and a leopard cat (!! this one was definitely the cutest of them all, and hung around for a while...we watched it for about 5 minutes...it didn't seem to mind the super bright light at all).
wanna see more pictures of our adventures in Taman Negara? click here
We were quite excited to wake up to the sound of NO RAIN! Quite excited, we grabbed some breakfast and crossed the
river to go back to the Jungle Walkway (which was open, since it wasn't raining!). After paying our 5 ringgit, we headed up, and enjoyed the rickety 30 min walk 120 feet up in the air! Quite satisfied, we decided to do a bit more trekking, but on the other side of the black river (we also really wanted to cross the river, so we could see the brown river and the black rivers mixing up close). We started our hike on the opposite side of the river, quite happy that it was not raining, and stopping to check for leeches every 5 minutes or so. We saw some wild boar tracks, and got pretty excited (we really wanted to spot some kind of wild animal...maybe an elephant or a tiger...even though we knew we probably wouldn't). We continued our trek, stopping every few minutes or so beca
use we thought we heard an animal (even though we didn't...it turns our there are lots of random noises in the rain forest). Then, we really did hear a wild animal--a boar squealing. At this point we realized that we actually didn't really want to encounter a wild boar, especially after hearing many stories about how aggressive they are. We stood there for a while, trying to decide what to do, until we heard another squeal (much closer) and lots of rustling. At this point, Phil grabbed a stick and we both ran behind a tree. It turns out this tree just happened to be home to quite a few termites, which had decided to come out in full force after we disturbed them. After running back out onto the main trail to brush a bunch of termites off us, we decided we had had enough of mosquitoes, leeches, termites, and boars and decided to turn around. We boated across the river, took a quick shower, grabbed some food, and booked ourselves a "night safari tour". At 8pm, we boarded a pickup truck with a whole bunch of other people (4 inside the cab, 6 in the bed, and 5 of us on the top...yes, we were o
n top) and headed out to the palm tree orchard (which I thought was a strange place to search for wildlife, but it actually worked out in the end). The guide connected a giant, super bright spot light to the car battery, and began scanning the trees. Our first sighting was a slow loris [note: while this link provides video footage of a slow loris, I think our picture (left) of the slow loris in action is much more useful]. After that, we saw some owls, a bunch of really pretty kingfishers, several cows, lots of mice, a palm civet (the same ones that eat coffee and poop it out to make that very special variety of coffee) and a leopard cat (!! this one was definitely the cutest of them all, and hung around for a while...we watched it for about 5 minutes...it didn't seem to mind the super bright light at all).wanna see more pictures of our adventures in Taman Negara? click here
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